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Monday, 8 June 2015

I had started a blogpost a while ago stating how pleased I am that I have a lot of crops doing quite well, but on closer inspection, things aren't as rosey as I thought.

Firstly, the potatoes in bags. On the surface, all looked great. A nice full healthy green foliage. You couldn't ask for anything more. On emptying one bag out, I found out you could. The soil was very dry, it needed far more watering than I was giving it. There wasn't many potatoes either, some hadn't fully developed yet, so I could have been a bit early with them. On the plus side though, they were perfect without a blemish of any description and they tasted so good. I'll leave the rest for a little while longer.

Next up are the onions. Not a major problem, but a minor oversight on my part. The first and main bed for them are doing OK generally speaking, it's just that, come the evening, the main crop of potatoes are literally leaving the onions in the shade. The rows nearest the potatoes are a bit on the small side. With any luck they'll taste better for being smaller. Here's hoping anyway.

The pumpkins and courgettes have taken a beating thanks to my inexperience. Next to my new picnic area I've put a sheet of weed suppressant membrane, cut into it and planted six pumpkin plants and six courgette plants. Most of the plants had got a bit leggy or long while sitting on my windowsill, so I placed a few bricks around they to help support them. The trouble is that with a bit of a breeze, they have flapped about, rubbed against the edge of the bricks and cut the their own stems. I'm now left with three courgettes and two pumpkin plants.

The tomato plants that I have grown from seeds saved from a supermarket tomato are looking bad to say the very least. It got to a stage where I needed to pot them on, but the only option left to me was to have them at the allotment. After one slightly windy day, they went from OK to half dead. If I only get one tomato from the whole experiment, I'll be happy.

It's not all doom and gloom on the plot. The first lot of carrots in a bucket have started to come up, so I've done another lot. Just for the record, the row on the left are chantenay and Autumn Kings on the right. I will have to be brave and thin out at some point and I've yet to see what's happening underneath, but the signs are good at the moment.

This is my first time growing spring onions and I must say that they are a darn sight easier than radishes. The best part is I don't need to thin them out either, or at least that's what I read on the back of the packet

My 'And finally' message is a bit of a sad one. The robins that had nested in my shed seem to have left leaving behind four eggs, not three as first thought. I haven't seen them for a few days now. Till next time and thanks for reading.